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Episode #403: Mid-Year Prospecting Checklist

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advancedsellinpodcastgraphicbootAre you feeling a mid-year sales slump?

Are you looking for ways to modify your prospecting techniques for Q3-Q4?

In this episode, veteran sales trainers Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale give you an assessment to grade your prospecting behaviors in the first half of the year.

Are you using a true referral system to generate leads? Do you employ behavioral KPI’s (and stick to them)?

In today’s episode of The Advanced Selling Podcast, you will learn the elements of healthy prospecting strategies and give yourself a mid-year grade.  If you’re in the market to up your game for the second half of the year, don’t miss this episode.

Be sure to download the Mid Year Prospecting Checklist!

Also mentioned in this podcast:

Episode #362: Sales Assets – More Than Just Numbers

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advancedsellinpodcastgraphicbootAre you utilizing all of your assets in your sales process? In today’s Mailbag Monday episode, veteran sales trainers Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale explore a question from Chelsea about how to use your talents to strengthen your impact when opening doors in sales.

Do you have characteristics of your personality that you ignore when working your sales process?

Do you utilize your personal interests, skills and things you love to do to help you connect with others?

In this episode of The Advanced Selling Podcast, Bill and Bryan give you techniques you can use to insert more human elements into your process. They help you focus on the things you love to do outside of sales and put them into use in your sales career. If you’ve ever thought to yourself “What if they don’t like the real me?”, this episode is for you. The world needs more of the “real” person in every sales situation, and Bill and Bryan will tell you just how to do it in this episode.

Also mentioned in this podcast:

Marissa Is At The Top Of Her Game. So How Does She Do It?

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I met Marissa last month at an event I was asked to speak at. She was 27 years old and, while attractive, she didn’t turn heads when she walked in the room.

And, she was assertive, but in a serene, comfortable way.

SYSTEM-THE-ROAD-TO-THE-GOAL.

As high achievers usually do, she approached me after my speech and wanted to ask me a few questions about my topic-“How To Be A High Sales Achiever In An Ultra-Competitive Market.”

She asked the question, and scribbled down some of my input. But I could tell something was different about her. So, I asked her how she had climbed to be the top ranked sales person at her software company (a company that has over 100 sales people.)

Here was her formula of how she rose to the top:

1. “I have a web page that offers a free download of a checklist I wrote about how you know if you’re ready for software.” She maintained this was THE thing that was the difference maker. Now, when she’s networking, all she does is meet people, collect their card, and send them a nice email that links to her web page.

NOTE: She spent her own money on the site, the email software behind it, and paid to have the checklist written. This total cost was about $500/year, a pittance when you see her earnings. Read more

Building Your Platform To Make Selling Easy(ier)

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Last week, I got called by a CPA firm who wanted training for their people. This you must know: CPAs are not very good at selling. It’s not that they don’t have the expertise. That’s not it at all.

It’s that selling spooks them. It’s not in their comfort zone.

So, when I get a call from a professional services firm (or any company), I always start with one simple question: Do you have a platform?

Platform

After the weird looks they give me, I go on to educate them to what a “Platform” is.

Platform: definition, A position in the market that you occupy where people look to you for expertise.

Physical Platform

Just as you would speak at a conference from a podium (platform) the same thing applies here. In the physical world, it is you speaking from the stage, on a topic that you have some degree of expertise in, where all eyes are on you.

There, you don’t have to fight for attention. You ARE the show.

In the sales & marketing world, your platform could be a variety of things. LinkedIN is a platform. Any kind of social media could be a platform (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram). Your email list is a platform. A podcast is a platform.

Simply, it is a place where you command attention of the people you’re trying to reach.

Your platform is a positioning tool that raises you above the din of competition and market confusion.

You Have One Right Now, But You May Not Know It Read more

Fear Gets In The Way Of Intention

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Do you ever feel self-conscious during a call with a prospect? When that fear creeps in all your prior intentions go right out the window. If you are focused on yourself, you are focused on the wrong person. You are there to help them solve their burdens. When you are fearful, it keeps them from getting the solution they really need.

The One Thing That Will Change Your Sales World

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Apologies to the person who created the “flower and the bee” concept but I think that epitomizes perfectly the problem with most sales processes today.

The-Flower-Does-Not

And do we ever have a problem.

The ‘flower and the bee’ phenomena goes like this: in nature the flower must pollinate itself. It sits there waiting for the bee (one of the many ways pollination happens) to pollinate it. The flower does not labor, nor does it stress about bees showing up. Bees, on the other hand, are scurrying about trying to find food, and pollinating the flower.

In business, sales people are typically the bees and the customer is the flower. Sales people scurry around the country looking for food.

Why does it have to be that way? Why shouldn’t the sales professional be sitting – allowing the prospect to show up for them? Why?

It’s because we don’t plan it out that way. (We actually might, secretly, like the scurrying about looking for plants -err prospects.)

We have bought into the flower/bee process so heavily in sales that we refuse to even admit that it’s all wrong. (We also do this when job searching…wrong again.) Read more

The Age-Old Problem in Selling is…

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The age-old problem in selling is: how do you get in front of a customer’s needs?

If your product is one which you can ‘manufacture’ the need for, then you might be able to cold call from a phone book and say the right things that brings awareness to the customer’s problem.

But if you’re in a business like most of us where the prospect actually must have some kind of a presenting need or pain, then you calling from the phone book will be a colossal waste of time.

I’m not like some of my colleagues who say that cold calling is a total waste of effort and energy, however I do think there are some things we can get out of a cold call that might be slightly different.

prospect sortingNo Longer a Seller. Forever A Sorter.

I prefer to look at this whole process of prospecting as a sorting mechanism.

I am sorting the people who will never do anything with me – from the people who don’t have a need right now but might soon – from the people who I just happened to call it the right time and they have an immediate issue.

So the first order of business is to change your mindset from one of a seller to one of a sorter. Once you do that, then you will need to determine what the categories are into which you will sort suspects and prospects. I like to look at this as a bucket scenario. Read more

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. And Playing Not to Lose.

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I couldn’t help but think over the past two weekends of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament how often a team that is ahead by 15 to 20 points will begin playing not to lose the game – and watch their lead dwindle in the final moments.

MICHIGAN VS KANSAS - Playing Not to LoseSometimes, teams ahead by 20 points lose the game because they can never find the rhythm once they decide to go into a slowdown mode. Michigan defeating Kansas is one such example. Kansas was up by 15-20 points consistently in the second half. But they began ‘looking at the clock’ and lost their mojo. And were unable to find it.

They eventually lost.

Another example of a lead that dwindled but the team held on was Wichita State vs. Ohio State. In that game, the same thing occurred. Wichita State had a commanding lead but went into a ‘slowdown offense’ instead of continuing to do the things that got them that lead in the first place.

I’ve also watched the countless high school games where a big lead dwindles because the team ahead stops the fast-break, the good passing, always being a threat to score and great movement.

So what is this playing-not-to-lose-mentality that overtakes us?

And does it ever happen in sales? Actually, I think playing not to lose catches us in several areas: Read more

Getting Ready For the Next Recession

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Getting ready for the next recession. It’s coming. Maybe not for a few years, but now’s the time to get ready. Remember how you felt when it hit you like a ton of bricks in 2009? Don’t EVER EVER let that happen to you again.

Make a list of the top 10 things you need to do (in your business) to get ready.

  1. More customers? Check.
  2. More alliances? Check.
  3. More money in your bank account? Check.
  4. Refer this blog post to your tribe? Check. (Ooops. Got carried way, there)